This month the Skeptical Inquirer site has an amusing look at the
mathematical and scientific logic of Ghosts, Vampires, and
Zombies. How do these creatures selectively follow or ignore the
laws of science?

I find young people want to invest in "things." Things break.
Things get obsolete and have to be replaced. What you really want
to invest in is not "things" but in "experience." Experience
lasts the rest of your life. Travel is a cheap way to get
experience. [-mrl]

In late September there was a news story release that said that
it has been discovered that plants actually communicate with each
other. It seemed to me that was something that the world already
knew. But I guess this made it official. Researcher Josef
Stuefer from the Radboud University in the Netherlands found that
plants like strawberry and clover send out horizontal stems
(a.k.a. runners) along the ground and the stems join those from
other plants of the same species. And they communicate with each
other.

So what do strawberry plants have to say to each other? Well so
far, based on actual reactions that Stuefer has found the message
has to be to something to the effect of "Look out! Look Out!
LOOK OUT!" And then there is a sort of scream. At least that
would be the human equivalent. The message is a warning and/or a
cry of anguish. What is the subject of the message? Well
apparently it is a caterpillar warning. The speaking plant is
warning others that it is literally being eaten alive by
caterpillars. It would be nightmarish if we were talking about
something a little more advanced than a strawberry plant.

But what of the plants who get this horrific warning. Can they
"look out"? Well, apparently they can. Fore-warned is fore-
armed (or fore-stemmed or something). For example, the plants
can start chemical changes that both make the leaves harder to
eat, they also do not taste as good. It is not as good being
able to flick the caterpillars off, but at least it is something.
But the communication system does not come without a price.
Viruses can also jump from plant to plant so I suppose you have
to be a little cautious of whom you talk to if you are a plant.

As soon as I read the article I stopped and asked myself, is this
not just old news. I seem to remember the dialog from the 1951
film THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD where it is discussed that
plants can do just that:

Scotty: You mean there are vegetables right here on Earth that
can think?
Carrington: A certain kind of thinking, yes. You ever hear of
the telegraph vine?
Scotty: Not recently.
Carrington: Or the...- Is it the Acanthus Century Plant,
Dr. Stern?
Stern: Yes.
Carrington: Go ahead, doctor. That's your field.
Stern: Well, the century plant catches mice, bats, squirrels,
any small mammals. Uses a sweet syrup as bait, then holds
onto its catch and feeds on it.
Scotty: What's the telegraph vine?
Stern: The vine, research has proven, can signal to other
vines of the same species...vines up to miles away.
Carrington: Intelligence in plants and vegetables is an old
story, Mr. Scott. Older even than the animal arrogance that
has overlooked it.

That was 56 years ago. So I decided to look it up. Google has
exactly five references to the "Acanthus Century Plant". All of
the references are talking about the film. There apparently are
Century Plants, but Google can find no references to an "Acanthus
Century Plant" other than in the film.

What about the "Telegraph Vine"? That one sounds really
interesting. The major references are to the comment in the
film. Anyone commenting on it in a context divorced from the
film is mentioning it in informal comments on blogs. Someone
commenting on another posting mentions it as an example of a
communicating plant, but this is an unofficial author who could
have gotten it from the film. Some people suggest that the
Telegraph Vine may be another name for Kudzu. I can easily
believe that there are no official references to either plant. I
have been flimflammed by a science fiction film. Apparently most
people who believe in these plants were similarly flimflammed.
The plants that Stuefer studied have destroyed my faith in the
science of 1950s science fiction films. I love 1950s science
fiction films. So the plants may talk to each other, but I am not
speaking to them. [-mrl]

CAPSULE: A young private investigator takes a job of looking for
a little girl whose kidnapping has become a media event. This
investigation will prove not just to be violent and shocking, it
will also raise some complex moral questions. Ben Affleck's
first feature film as director turns out to be a much better film
than most of the films that he has acted in. This is a strong,
well-directed film and the debut of what could be a very
promising director. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10

In 2003 Clint Eastwood, one of our finest directors, made MYSTIC
RIVER, based on a novel by Dennis Lehane. It was set in the
Boston area and was a complex story about crime, but more deeply
it looked at moral issues. Ben Affleck, an affable but not
heavily dramatic actor, is breaking into directing with GONE BABY
GONE. (According to the IMDB, he directed a sixteen-minute short
with the unlikely title "I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a
Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney".) Like
MYSTIC RIVER, Affleck's film is based on a novel by Dennis
Lehane, also set in Massachusetts, also a crime film with deep
moral overtones. Intentionally or not (and it probably is)
Affleck is inviting comparison with a top director. That is a
fair-sized gamble and it probably pays off. GONE BABY GONE is
probably on a par with MYSTIC RIVER or nearly so. Like Clint
Eastwood and Robert Redford and a few others, after establishing
a career as a popular actor, Affleck may well have much more
talent for direction. I have to say that I cannot think of any
film that featured Affleck's acting that is as substantial as the
film he directed.

Patrick Kenzie (played by Ben's brother Casey Affleck) is a young
and inexperienced private detective. He really knows less about
being a detective than he does just about his tough Boston
neighborhood. The major news story, not just in his neighborhood
but through all of Boston, is that three days before the first
action of the film a cute little girl of about four years, Amanda
McCready (Madeline O'Brien), was kidnapped from her home. The
police, led by Chief Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) are
investigating, but not making much progress. Amanda's Aunt
Beatrice (Amy Madigan) wants someone inquiring who knows the
neighborhood and the people who would not talk to the police.
The first question that piques Kenzie's curiosity is why is it an
aunt of the child and not the mother who wants his help. He soon
finds that Helene McCready (Amy Ryan) is not the distraught woman
she seems in front of the news cameras. Helene is more
interested in alcohol and drugs than she is about her daughter
Amanda. Her negligence of her daughter borders on the criminal.
Amanda may well be better off kidnapped than at home. The trail
to discover what has happened to Amanda will lead to several
bloody deaths in an ugly low-class neighborhood. Meanwhile the
police resent a private investigator, particularly one so
inexperienced, "augmenting" their investigation. Also working
the case are detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole
(John Ashton).

Where does the film go wrong? I had a problem with the casting
of Madeline O'Brien as Amanda, the little girl who was kidnapped.
It creates a certain tension in the film that we are concerned
for her. But a more average looking girl might have suited the
authentic feel that Affleck works so hard to create. She is just
a little too cute and a little too blond and a little too
perfect. It feels a bit manipulative to have a JonBenét Ramsey
in this lower class neighborhood. But what is good about the
script and where it does do right by the viewer is that it all
culminates in a large moral issue. In spite of the crime and the
violence, the point of the film is a moral issue. And novel
writer Dennis Lehane and scriptwriters Ben Affleck and Aaron
Stockard do not tie it all up with a pretty bow at the end. The
film culminates in a moral dilemma. And it is a dilemma.
Neither choice seems right and neither choice seems wrong. And a
lessor story would have told the viewer what to think. And that
would have been what made it a lessor story. Members of my
audience were clearly unhappy with the ending. Affleck chose a
story that took some chances for a first directorial film.

GONE BABY GONE has a strong feel of authenticity in its view of a
lower class Boston neighborhood. It has an intelligent script
that respects the viewer's intellect. It is a strong statement
that Affleck wants to direct a film better than those in which he
has been cast are. I think it was the right move. I rate GONE
BABY GONE a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10.

In the 10/26/07 issue of the MT VOID, Fred Lerner quoted someone
as having said, "Think how much more peaceful the former
Yugoslavia would be if the Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians all spoke
the same language." In response to some letters we have received,
I would like to point out that--except for some regionalisms--
these groups do speak the same language, and the speaker was
making a joke. [-ecl]

Your recent series of articles on languages dying off, how the
Navajo language has managed to survive and John Purcell's comments
on WINDTALKER's reminded me of another incident where the Navajo
language played a part in Hollywood.

I am reading several of Tony Hillerman's detective novels and just
completed his "Sacred Clowns" story, which was written in the
early 1990's. According to the story line, the Navajo people
enjoy gathering for a showing of the movie CHEYENNE AUTUMN where
the Cheyenne Indians are played by several actors from the Navajo
nation. All of the on-screen dialogue from the Cheyenne
characters is in Navajo (according to Hillerman) and the audience
is kept in stitches by the many irreverent and often crude remarks
that are directed at the officials from the U.S. Government during
their face-to-face meetings.

Apparently no one associated with the movie production understood
the Navajo language. [-gfm]

Mark adds, "I believe that. I have talked with Navajo and they
have a good sense of humor. Just a bit cynical, but funny. I
don't know that the makers of the film did not know what was going
on. After all the film was fairly negative on the US government.
They may not have cared. Interesting coincidence: The day just before
this publication I heard the identical story. However it was Jean-
Jacques Annaud in his commentary for QUEST FOR FIRE and he said it was
Inuits voicing parts in his film. Perhaps it has happened more than
once." [-mrl]

Unless you're talking about the dying off of languages, then it's
time to get long-winded. But I shall try to be brief.

Actually, it was the reference to curare, which the Banawas make,
that caught my interest. The linguist in me would like nothing
better for Dr. Everett to preserve their language, which would
thus preserve an intimate knowledge of the Amazon rain forest
that might be forever lost. However, the movie-hound in me--in
particular, the 007-fan part of me--picked up on the curare
reference, which Louis Jourdan employs a derivative of for
interrogation purposes in OCTOPUSSY (1983). Curare certainly
sounds like a lovely substance that classy villains like
Jourdan's Kamal Khan would use. At any rate, the language of the
Banawas will hopefully be saved, and in the process, the identity
of this tribe--and others, of course--will continue. There
really is so much these relatively unsullied by Western
Civilization indigenous peoples can teach us. Saving their
languages is only one way in which we can save their heritage.

Since we're on the subject of languages, not only are people
studying Klingon, but the Klingon Language Institute in Flourton,
Pennsylvania (http://www.kli.org) has published various texts.
For example, I have a copy of Shakespeare's HAMLET which the KLI
has translated back into its "original" Klingon; it comes complete
with introduction, end-notes, pronunciation guides, and has each
left page of the play in English with the right page in its
corresponding Klingon. Some year when I teach this play, I
really do plan on coming into class in my Renaissance festival
costume while wearing Klingon make-up, carry a skull with me, and
launch into the "to be or not be" soliloquy done completely in
Klingon. I think my students would love it.

Finally, it's funny that Evelyn reviewed Kingsley Amis' wonderful
book, THE KING'S ENGLISH. Just like the Klingon version of
Hamlet, this is a book that I found at the Half-Price Bookstore
in town. Like Evelyn says, you may not agree with many of his
arguments, but Amis writes with such verve--there's that word
again--and panache, that it is a very enjoyable book to read. I
haven't read it in a while, but it is worth a re-read some year.
[-jp]

Mark responds, "Are you saying you learned about curare for the
first time in OCTOPUSSY? Gad, that makes me feel old.
Interesting that 007 and Kingsley Amis come up in the same piece
of mail. Were you aware that Amis wrote a James Bond novel,
COLONEL SUN? Amis was the first author tagged to continue the
series after Ian Fleming died." [-mrl]

ON THE ART OF READING by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (ISBN-13
978-1-42805-7487, ISBN-10 1-4280-5748-X) is a series of lectures
on how reading is taught, or rather, mis-taught in British public
schools of his time (the 1910s). His complaints that the method
of testing students does not encourage students to read the great
works for their own sake, but rather to learn about them what is
required for the tests, are still quite relevant. But most
intriguing is his discussion of reading the Bible as literature.
First of all, he apparently has to defend this idea against the
more religious people, who do not want the Bible read as
literature, but only as a sacred text. Some may say that the
tables have turned and now it is the religious people who are
trying to get the Bible *into* the schools, but I suspect that
many of them are trying to get it in as sacred text, not as
literature.

In any case, Quiller-Couch goes on to explain the problems in
reading the Bible as literature. First, he says, "Imagine a
volume including the great books of our own literature all bound
together in some such order as this: Paradise Lost, Darwin's
Descent of Man, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Walter Map, Mill['s]
On Liberty, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, The annual Register,
Froissart, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Domesday Book, Le
Morte d'arthur, Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors,
Boswell's Johnson, Barbour's The Bruce, Hakluyt's Voyages,
Clarendon, Macaulay, the plays of Shakespeare, Shelley's
Prometheus, ...,, Bailey's Festus, Thompson's Hound of Heaven."
Now further assume, he says, that "most of the authors' names are
lost; that, of the few that survive, a number have found there
way into wrong places; that Ruskin, for example, is credited with
Sartor Restatus ...; and that, as for the titles, these were
never invented by the authors, but by a Committee?"

And further, poetry is printed as prose, paragraphs and even
sentences are broken into short verses, and then we "pepper the
result all over with italics and numerals, print it in double
columns, with a marginal gutter on each side, each gutter pouring
down an inky flow of references and cross-references."

In short, Quiller-Couch does not say the problem is the language.
He is not calling for a new translation; he thinks the King James
version is fine, and indeed what should be taught. He just wants
the Bible that students read as literature to be printed like any
other work of literature. And indeed, the purpose of the
"Revised Standard Version", the "New English Bible", the "New
International Version", the "Good News Bible", the "Black Bible
Chronicles", or any of the many other translations is
evangelical, not artistic. [-ecl]

Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Quote of the Week:
All my joys to this are folly,
Naught so sweet as melancholy.
-- Robert Burton, 1651,
The Anatomy of Melancholy